European Partnership for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises

We support the continuation of Eurostars. The program is a helpful and important way for R&D-performing SMEs to cooperate internationally. Especially for small companies the program creates new jobs, new projects/products/services, and offers access to the market in an efficient way. We are currently participating in the EUROSTARS program and created three new fulltime jobs. We believe that adding Option 0.

We welcome the European Partnership for Innovative SMEs under Horizon Europe, as an important initiative aimed at supporting the most innovative SMEs. To ensure the success of the “European Partnership for Innovative SMEs” we consider - easy accessibility for SMEs, - close alignment with other instruments and - a true European added value pivotal.

EuropeanIssuers is the pan-European organisation which represents the interests of publicly quoted companies from all sectors. Dedicated to serving our members from 15 countries across Europe, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland and Spain, we aim to ensure that EU policy creates an environment in which companies of all sizes – from large blue-chip companies to small and mid-caps as well as…

SMEs in Central Europe currently face shortages of skilled labor force mainly in relation to the requirements posed by technological progress and economic innovation. This is particularly true for Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) as social SMEs working for the integration of disadvantaged groups.

The Commission is considering a partnership to help SMEs innovate, collaborate and grow and to support their integration into global value chains and new markets in order to contribute to the EU’s long-term competitiveness and economic growth - building on the existing Eurostars2 programme but significantly revising its scope and expanding its partners.

- Malta’s economy is strongly populated by SMEs and the continuation of the EUROSTARS program is coherent with Malta’s efforts to encourage local SMEs development from knowledge and research perspectives, to help SMEs innovate, collaborate internationally and grow.

The new EU-SME Instrument (phase 2b, accelerator) addressed to innovative SMEs with the concept of loosing and binding SME-Equity to the EU itself is not at all interesting for highly innovative companies and will definitely not work, so to expand the Eurostars 2 national focus by adding for example lucrative Partnerships and markets outside the EU for example the USA or Canada will greatly benefit the mid- and long…

Full support for this successful and large initiative, which should be continued in its well-proven format - i.e. that option 3 Art 185 TFEU initiative should be followed. The programme successfully covered all EU countries and beyond (currently around 36 participating countries) - it is of course open to all EUREKA countries (which include associated countries outside Europe), if they wish to participate.

Please find attached comments of ACT | The App Association on the European Commission's Roadmap titled "European Partnership for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (Horizon Europe programme)." We are committed to assisting the EC in any way we can moving forward. ACT | The App Association (Transparency Reg. # 7202951387754) Lighthouse Europe Avenue Adolphe Lacomblé, 59 B-1030 Brussels

Feedback of the Inception Impact Assessment are the following: 1) We aim to implement an Institutionalised European Partnership, based on article 185 TFEU. We expect the leverage effect to be higher and a complementarity with EIC activities: for example, an interesting option would be that comparable EIC business support services are offered both to EIC and Eurostars SME beneficiaries.

Vinnova fully supports the idea of a new Eurostars programme under Horizon Europe. The programme should build on the Eurostars 2 programme under Horizon 2020 but the target group should be widened to involve all innovative SMEs. It is also important to further strengthen the support for international cooperation in research and innovation beyond Europe in the new programme.

We agree on the relevance of this partnership in order to complement existing EU instruments supporting SMEs. However we belive that there should be more common guidelines among participating countries, regarding eligibility criteria and minimum financial commitment. This would allow a more efficient cooperation between partner countries.

Germany strongly supports the continuation of Eurostars as it is the only funding program dedicated to R&D-performing SMEs that collaborate internationally. It has been proven that Eurostars projects create new knowledge, jobs, intensify international collaboration, and offer the participants an access to new markets.

We are currently participanting in the EUROSTARS program and consider it a very helpful and important way to support SME's in their efforts to develop new projects and products and access the market in a fast and efficient way. We believe that adding Option 0. (funding also single organizations in addition to SME cooperation partners) would be very interesting as well.

The Eurostars is the most important Funding scheme for R&D performing SMEs in Europe. It is technology open and the funding rates are quite good. For enhancing the program I would recommend the following activities: 1. Same funding rules for all countries: the grant rates in the EU countries are very different from 30% to 50 %. Further not all works are eligible in the countries, i.e.

I think option 0 could be really interesting. As the CEO of a EU company, I deeply feel european in term of business. National rules and regulations are hindering SME development in other EU countries and worldwide. EU companies are not playing in the same ground that US companies (a unified market of 450 millions inhabitants and unified rules in the US territory).

VCI strongly supports the implementation of this partnership. However, the Commission should have a differentiated view to innovative SMEs and how to support them. Between fast-growing start-ups and the so-called lagging companies, the majority of innovative SME’s perform with normal growth rates and are at the same time economically successful and create new jobs.